BREE
by Larkspur Quince
Summary: A glimpse of who Bree, the girl Carlisle could not protect and the Volturi ultimately destroyed, might have been.
1. Chapter I

Hey everybody. Thank you for taking time to read my work - I really appreciate it. As you know, I own nothing of this series (to which we all owe Stephenie Meyer great homage). While I sincerely hope you enjoy the history I gave to Bree, I know that it's not perfect and I'm sure some of my facts are wrong. But what is fanfiction if we are not allowed to take liberties with the work of another?

Thanks again! -L.Q.

My story is one of the shorter ones ever to happen in vampire history, and yet for some reason I am compelled to tell it, such as it is

My story is one of the shorter ones ever to happen in vampire history, and yet for some reason I am compelled to tell it, such as it is. Mine is not a happy story: there is no romance, other than the hot blood my new beginnings thirsted for; there is no supportive vampire family, for the one who made me was less of a parent to me than my human one, and the others like me were no siblings; and there is no happy ending, for I commemorate my brief existence from an afterlife—not _the _afterlife, but one I have chosen temporarily which will allow me to write down my small history before I pass on, so it will not be lost forever. I can't tell you why I want my life heard, and I can't tell you that it will mean anything to you, anything at all. But I know that if, for the brief instant when I pass from this afterlife to _the _afterlife, I leave my story untold, my last thoughts will be of regret, remorse, and hatred. I want to pass on at least content. I _want _my last thoughts to be peaceful. And they won't be, I know they won't be, unless this past is out of me so I can prepare for my next—my third—end. You can understand that, can't you? So please, I ask you: listen to me, allow me to expel the memories of my life from my final death. I never wanted to live with these recollections and I certainly don't want to die with them! Do with this history what you will, it doesn't matter to me. All that is important is that it's not a part of me anymore, and I can move past it without ever needing to look back. For once in my life, I'm looking forward, even if what I see is death.

My name was Aubrey Michelle Richardson and I was born in 1992 in Seattle to people whose names I never knew, and adopted by Jeannie and Donald Richardson as an infant. I was their only child, the product of years of trying and failing to have a family. They trekked through a long process to get me. Jeannie was unable to bear children and adoption was their last hope. I know that my adoptive parents always loved me, but even as a child I was determined to be rebellious. In retrospect, I can't tell you why I was so angry all the time. I was taken to counseling for anger management after I assaulted my peers in elementary school at the age of six. I was like that all my life: I didn't have any natural instincts other than to hurt those around me, often violently—an excellent choice for a vampire whose creator knew she would not live very long.

Whatever Jeannie and Donald did for me, it was either wrong or it was never enough. I was _determined _to make their lives unnecessarily hard, and I am sorry for that now. Whatever they asked me not to do, I would do it, deliberately. As a child I left things out, I made messes. But not the messes every child makes. I would go through the drawers and empty them, breaking things and throwing them all around our small house. Whatever had the grave misfortune of touching my hands would meet almost certain obliteration, like the most terrible Midas touch ever: I would get into my father's liquor cabinet and hurl the bottles against the wall. I had this intense, overwhelming _need to destroy_. Nothing was if it was not broken in our house. I frustrated my parents with my anger and my bullying, my breaking and my awful behavior throughout my life, and I don't know why I was like that. There were times when I terrified them—and loved it. Therapists couldn't help me. No one could help me because I didn't want them to help me. I wanted to be a nightmare, and I was one, for as long as I can remember.

I think a lot of it was, of course, due to my liking girls and not boys. I'd known all my life, though I had never been able to articulate what I was feeling. I never knew what to do with my feelings. When I was in the third grade, I developed a crush on a girl named Molly Andrew. I tried to kiss her one day at recess and she rejected me. I had never known what that was like before; I'd never experienced rejection. It was new, and it sucked. Not knowing what to do with those feelings, I punched her in the face, and broke out two of her front teeth (which, when later questioned on my behavior by a therapist, I said she deserved for being a little bitch). She started crying and screaming, of course, with bits of her teeth in her hand and blood streaming down her face. My parents thought we were fighting over some sort of childish game. What they didn't know was that, in my own way, I had decided I loved her, and I didn't want them to see how much it hurt me that she didn't love me, too.

My entire childhood was a tumultuous, passionate, miserable, and dreadful. No one wanted to be around me, not even my parents. I was sure I could see in their eyes when they looked at me that they didn't want me, not anymore. But what I couldn't see was that they loved me still, loved me more than I had ever deserved. I told myself they hated me. They wanted to return me from wherever it was they got me. They thought they were saving me from something, giving me a better life, and yet they had failed. No one wanted me. By the time I was a teenager, I didn't want me, either.

I was completely out of control by the time I was fourteen. I drank mercilessly on a regular basis, and if I wasn't drunk, I was experimenting with drugs and my own sexuality. I couldn't tell anyone that I was gay—I didn't know how. I tried to be with girls, but most of them were just experimenting, like I said I was. My friends—that is, the people I got drunk or high or rolled with—drove recklessly around town, irresponsible and inconsiderate. We actually broke into buildings and stole things. We were that group of pierced, dyed, and unbelievably angry teenagers everyone hates. That year, one of the girls I'd been "fooling around with", Mandy, started to respond to me. We started "going out", as it was called. I was fifteen then, she was almost twenty-two and a high-school dropout. Jeannie and Donald hated her. Not necessarily because she was my girlfriend, but because she was so much older. They thought she should have been much more responsible than she was, like she should have been setting a better example for me. They didn't know that she was also my drug supplier, urging me to try new and illegal things. Most of the things I stole, broke, or smoked was to impress her. I really liked her, and I thought she really liked me. I might have loved her, then.

It was around that time when a bunch of my friends decided they were going to squat in an abandoned apartment in one of the shadier places in Seattle. They begged me to go with them, knowing I had only just turned sixteen. I was reluctant, but they pleaded and pulled so hard. Mandy threatened to leave me, and that almost drove me insane, like she knew it would—I didn't know it then, but Mandy manipulated me into doing things for her that she didn't want to do herself. She wasn't really even a lesbian, she just wanted to control me, and she knew I was crazy enough (about her, but also just in general) that I would do anything to keep her from leaving me. So I agreed. One night, screaming at my parents over something probably minute, I told them I hated them and that Mandy, my friends, and I were running away. I think I wanted to see what they would do, and I know that they cared. But they didn't believe me, and that only infuriated me more. So I did it. That night, they slept as I threw my belongings into a bag and jumped into Jason's car, stealing away in the cover of dark. I never said goodbye, and that was the last time I ever saw my parents.

Seattle was alright for the first few weeks. I got an odd job distributing and putting up flyers for a tiny hovel of a nightclub—they didn't care if I was too young to actually be _in _the nightclub. Life there was a constant struggle for food and money, and most of us were almost never sober. I didn't mind so much and I told myself I didn't miss Jeannie and Donald, who had never loved me anyway. I wasn't sure if they had issued a search for me, so whenever I saw a police car I would hide, and if any came walking near I bolted. None of them ever chased me, so I figured my parents didn't care where I was. I still don't know for sure if they ever did issue a search, but something in my heart tells me they did, and I wasn't human for long enough for anyone to ever find me, there in the darkness of myself.

A few weeks later, I came home from work and found Mandy—my Mandy—and one of our housemates, Jeremy, in bed together. The rage I felt was incredible. I started going around, screaming and breaking everything, stepping over needles and spoons and trash, vomit, shit, and destitution. I wandered into the open streets. I started to run, faster, faster. I ran until the sky got dark. Of course I, being young and unfamiliar with the city's streets at night, got lost. I was lost for days, walking away from everything, like I did with all my problems. From Mandy. From Jeremy. From everyone, everyone but me, away from all I knew to be real.

One Thursday night I found myself somewhere dark, an industrial sector of the city, starved and dehydrated, exhausted. My feet were blistered and raw, and it was dark now. I was a sixteen-year-old girl alone and without money, broken-hearted and wanting—waiting— to die. I should have been suspicious when a group of strangers appeared out of nowhere in the dark, but I wasn't. I thought they might have had drugs. And if they didn't, they might be prepared to kill me. I was not afraid. Not like I should have been.

They could probably see that I was young and afraid, lost. They could see I didn't think I had a home to return to. When I came up to them, they actually said _hello_. It wasn't until I was closer that I saw…how…absolutely _unbearably _beautiful they all were. It was like being hit with a battery ram to my very core. They were the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen: their skin was chalky white, their eyes glowing red. Every single one of them—each was more breathtakingly striking than the last, so much so I almost stopped breathing. I thought my heart had ceased to beat. I stopped where I stood, unable to make my feet move. They all turned and looked at me, each casting a calculating, smoldering gaze in my direction. There were seven or eight of them, I think, each one with the same excruciating beauty. It was painful to look at them, but it was agonizing to turn my eyes away.

"She's perfect," came a voice like murderous silk from one of the tall angels, but I couldn't tell which one. My brain couldn't differentiate between them just yet. It was an unearthly attractive male voice, like nothing I could ever remember hearing…

"Very good, Riley," came a second voice. This was different from the first: it was a woman's voice, and it made my knees weak with desire. "Tell me, what do you see? Tell me why she's perfect, Riley." The woman's voice was thick with lust and mystery, like she was asking her friend—or student, it seemed—to describe her rather than me.

"It's in her eyes," the one called Riley—who I could now see had golden hair— replied quietly, his own voice sultry and beautiful—if a voice can be beautiful. The female voice purred—she wanted him to go on. "Look at them. They're empty. This one's gone and gotten herself lost, and I'll bet she's homeless, too—look at the state of her. She is one who is ready for death. She's been waiting for us, like we've been waiting for her." The woman purred again, louder this time, like her ecstasy was building. It was now I realized they were really talking about me—these beautiful _beings _were talking about little Bree Richardson. It was also now, as the stunning things fanned out around me, that I realized it would be futile to run.

The other creatures beside them stirred in the dark, and I saw that they were coming closer to me. The woman stepped out into what little light an old street lamp cast down, and I could see her long, fiery red hair twirling and twisting like red water around her. She was a vision, a true vision. Her face was too beautiful to stand, cat-like and angular. Everything about her radiated desire for me. If her hair wasn't quite so vivid, wasn't so much like a movie or a dream, she would have reminded me of my Mandy…

…who wasn't _my _Mandy anymore. I felt myself drop to my knees, but my throat was too dry and closed for speech. One of the beautiful things chuckled. A new voice spoke, low and almost erotic.

"Oh, she's ready, I think. Her face tells me she wants to die. Let me bite her, Victoria—let me"—

"_No_, Victoria, I haven't gotten one this young yet, and Carlo has"—

"_She promised me the next one would be mine_!"—

"This one belongs to me! I'm _so_ thirsty, you really have no idea"—

"Stop it." Two words. The rest of the group fell silent as death. "None of you are to touch her. Did you not hear a word Riley said? We're not going to kill her. Riley is going to change her." I saw the blond boy's garnet eyes light up in his face; he event bent to kiss the woman, who let him. I wondered if this was against some kind of code—clearly the red-haired woman was Riley's superior, was he allowed to kiss her like that? But I didn't want his lips on me. I wanted _hers—_

I suppose I stretched a hand towards her. I couldn't speak, but I tried, and managed to cough a little.

"You…" The deep, erotic voice chuckled again, but it was a higher, sing-song female voice who spoke, laughter in her words.

"I think she's one of _those_, Victoria. See the way she's looking at you?"

"Hush, Anna. That doesn't matter. Riley, I want you to take her." They all looked at me then, and I sensed things would be very different after tonight. Stranger, darker, more twisted—I was dead inside; what they did to me now, I didn't care. And nothing was the same after that.


	2. Chapter II

Again, I cannot claim any of this as more than fanfiction, and I own no part of the Twilight series. Not perfect, there are flaws, blah blah blah.

They circled around me, and suddenly the fear left me

They circled around me, and suddenly the fear left me. I had never felt so…welcomed, as I did then, with the circle of beautiful creatures surrounding me, smiling at me, their dark eyes intent on mine, blue and wide with wonder. One of the males—the one with the silky voice and flaxen hair, the one called Riley—came at me from behind, his lips gently brushing the nape of my neck, a mere sigh of contact that barely registered.

"Tell us your name," he breathed against my skin. His breath was wonderfully sweet: it smelled like everything that had ever brought me joy. It smelled like…happiness of the fullest, brightest kind, the kind with which I had never been able to reconcile myself. My insides swelled, but my knees were still too weak to let me stand. Seeing this, the man grasped my arm gently and pulled me up. I had no chance of resisting his pull, strong as he was, but I noticed that his hands were colder than the night. They were like….stone, but so…_lifeless._

"What are you?" I remember asking, surprised that my voice was strong enough for them to hear. The redhead woman smiled ruefully. She was dressed, I noticed, just like any Seattle teenager—all of them were: sweatshirts and ripped jeans, Converse shoes, studded belts, dirty bracelets. They looked so normal, except for their absurd magnificence, like radiant stars in a black sky.

"Your name," the blonde one breathed against my neck again. I realized he had his icy arms around my waist, so I leaned against him. I felt, then, that he had no heartbeat. I would never have known he was there, if he had not been touching me. He held me like a lover, but when I twisted slightly I realized this was no lover's embrace—it was a cage. I struggled a bit and his arms never moved, not even a little. I stopped, knowing there was no way I could escape. You'd think I was terrified by then, but the truth is that I was so far beyond fear. I was intoxicated by everything about them, I was so heavy with desire that I could not find it in me to be afraid. I was young, you remember; I didn't _know_.

"Bree," I breathed. "My name…is Bree. Richardson." He held me closer, and suddenly I was so tired I couldn't fight it, and my eyes started to slip closed. I heard the higher female voice laugh, a sound like little wind-chimes that could have made the wind sigh.

"You won't need sleep after this," she murmured somewhere to my left. "This is the longest sleep of all." I tried to understand her meaning, but my brain was too fuzzy to make sense of her words. And suddenly I felt the body of the blonde boy behind me chuckle, shaking me a little; and then his lips were at my neck, kissing my white skin. I felt pressure as he kissed my neck harder, and suddenly a shock of pain hit me as I felt something sharp puncture my flesh. I wanted to fight, and I think I tried, but I was so tired and he held onto my so tightly that it was in vain. I felt him…_drinking _me, my lifeblood slipping through his lips, and even though I kicked a little, I think I let him have me. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live. I gave up and my body hung limp in his arms, and then everything was black.

For the following three days, all I knew was pain, the most hideous, agonizing, monstrous pain ever imagined. My whole body wanted to scream and run, like it was being turned inside out, but it was so horrifying I could do nothing but lay there on the cold ground. I didn't know where I was: in my unconsciousness Victoria and her crew had taken me somewhere, some big crowded house. I screamed, I tore my throat up with screaming. There were five or six people in the room with me, all screaming and writhing, just the same as I. For three days I bore the gruesome torture, unable to do anything about it. No one came when I screamed. No one cared. I was dying or falling apart and nobody even opened the door. I have never feared death so much as I did then, on the floor of Victoria's house, venom and new hate burning in my veins.

And then, abruptly, the pain receded. I stopped screaming. My own skin was icy cold to the touch—cold like theirs had been. I could not tell you what I felt then: relieved at the end of the pain, and…there are no words, no way I can describe it to you. I felt dead and alive, simultaneously. I felt hollow, yet I felt more whole than I ever have.

But mostly, I was _thirsty._ And I knew what I thirsted for.

The others around me also gradually stopped their screeching and thrashing and sat up, looking around us. I remember the wood floor beneath us felt like it had never been swept. It was dark, with a little bit of light pouring in from below the door. I was alert of everything around me in ways I had never been. I knew that the rest of the people inside the big Seattle house were…like me, whatever I was. And I knew that, in a few seconds, the tension building exponentially towards one corner of the room would reach critical mass and explode.

A shattering snarl erupted; a louder, livid one followed. Suddenly there was a commotion, and two of the creatures in the room with me threw themselves at one another. The sound was like boulders colliding. The walls shook, and the door slammed open—some of the others in the room with me ran out, and I saw each of them had white, beautiful skin the same as mine. I was too horrified to move, so I watched as the two monsters tore each other apart, ripping white stones from one another. It was the single most violent thing I'd ever seen—and I'd been living in a dark part of town, where a lot of drug deals went poorly and a lot of homeless people became targets for the merciless street kids, like me. But these creatures, they didn't bleed: the ripped and tore and snarled, garnet fire in their inhuman eyes. They moved so fast, too fast—they made sounds that could only be described as animal—and I knew I was just like them.

It was all over in no more than ten seconds. The two creatures both had died in their fight, reduced to shapeless , stony white hunks scattered about the room. Shaken, I stared at them.

What _were _we? What beings could do things like this? Clearly we were something outlandish, otherworldly. What had they…_made me?_

"You're a newborn vampire," Riley told me later that night, when I finally ventured out of the room in which I…well, where I was born, I guess. There were a zillion newborn vampires running around Victoria's house, coming and going, being born and killing each other. There was a constant screaming that frightened me at first, but the more time I spent there, the less its presence swam in my ears. I didn't believe it when they told me, but I could do everything they said I would be able to.

And I thirsted for human blood like I had never known the taste of anything else, ever.

The longing for it was more than longing. It was life; no, it was more than life. It was everything I needed. It was the only thing I needed. It was ever present in my thoughts; indeed, it was the only thing I found I could ever think about. I lived—if my existence could really be considered living—only to feed.

And I fed often, several times a day. But no matter how much I fed—how many human lives I took—to slake my hunger, it was never, never enough. I could do nothing without wondering when I could feed again, when my fangs—for I found that I did, indeed, have fangs, those sharp things found only in the monsters of fairytales—would pierce the neck's skin of some poor person, lured to me by my new beauty. I was as breathtaking as the rest of the newborns, and as I grew into being a vampire, I learned to use what I was to attract them. It was like a frenzy for me: I needed blood, and I needed it all the time. That period for me…it was indescribable. It was like that for all of us.

It's true, what they say about newborn vampires. Our strength is incredible. Our tempers are even more unbelievable: we anger at anything, the slightest little thing can turn us in the monsters we always have the capability to be. I had my share of fights; I killed a few members of our coven, as Victoria, or Riley, her especial friend, called it. He was only a few months older than most of us, but because Victoria had clearly decided to favor him (that he had _won _her favor was…clearly not the case), he enjoyed lording it above us. But because I had shown promise in my training, scarce more than the others, he did not punish me. And I was not sorry—I think I had quite forgotten how to be and what it felt like. It's saddening to think now that maybe by killing those newborns, I was saving them. Saving them, at least, from the nightmares they faced in training for Victoria's army. But I know that I say that to cover myself, for while I was not sorry for their deaths then, my own deaths have given me back my ability to feel human, and I am sorry now.

We didn't even know what we were fighting for, really, only that we were to do something for Victoria and that we would be rewarded—we were never told with what. Vampires have some code that follows the lines of do-unto-others-what-is-done-unto-you, but I'm obviously a little fuzzy on the details. We imagined our reward would be Seattle and all the human life in it, that it would be our territory and we could feed as we pleased. It did not occur to us then that Seattle was not really hers to give, and if we all of us just let loose, soon there would be no human life to satisfy us. There was no order established, no organization of any kind. Our responsibility was to make more newborns and learn to fight.

At night groups of us would go through town and…_feast. _No better word comes to mind. We would terrorize and destroy, kill, kill, and kill again. Life for me then was some horrible concoction of death and killing and…eugh. Let me say that at that point, we were not monsters because of what we were physically. We were monsters because we _liked _it—we liked what we were and what we could do. It was _fun _for us. The memory disgusts me.

They had made me into an eternal sixteen year old—I would look that way forever. But because I had never learned (or refused to learn, I suppose) how to deal with my problems and my anger, I was permanently sixteen inside, too. Not a day went by that Mandy's freckled face did not invade my head. I saw that last image of her, with Jeremy, constantly. If I had been angry before, I was so far gone in it now that I knew nothing else. I thought what she had done to me was inexcusable, the worst of human mistakes. I decided then that it would be her last mistake. A normal person would have been upset at her infidelity, and maybe keyed her car or something. A normal person would have realized that the problem was me and my continual acceptance of her control over me. A normal person would not have decided that the best punishment for my cheating girlfriend was, essentially, to eat her. But I wouldn't do to her what had been done to me—I would bite her, yes, and I would crush her in my arms with my teeth in her neck as she struggled against me, but she would not escape and would fall, limp and lifeless, with a thud like a heavy bag on the ground.

I had it all planned. I went to the apartment we inhabited and waited, knowing Mandy was at work. A few of the others were there, but I was so quick and quiet none of them ever noticed me. I found the disgustingly dirty bedroom Mandy and I had shared, where Laura and Amy had slept on the floor, and went to the darkest corner. I could stand for long periods without pain. We vampires are like stone, seriously—too many stairs or standing or sitting for too long doesn't bother us at all. So I waited.

But I didn't have to wait very long. It was just after six when I heard Mandy come through the front door of the apartment, her raucous laughter coupled with Jeremy's. Fury boiled beneath my skin, coursing through dry veins where blood should have been. It was hideously difficult to remain still when I knew my chance was so near. If I had had a heart, it would have begun pounding furiously in my chest when I heard the two of them climbing the stairs toward the bedroom. And suddenly they burst through the door to the bedroom, holding each other and kissing as lovers do. I watched them fall into the bed, grasping each other madly. I watched as Jeremy tore away her shirt, her bra, her favorite pair of jeans, touching her where only _I_ should have touched her. When I could stand no more, I approached the bed, my ruby eyes boring through them. I made no noise, but the absolute wrath in my face was more than enough. My presence was—obviously—not expected. Mandy screamed.

"Oh my God! Bree? What the fuck! What the fuck are you doing here? I thought you left—were you _watching_? What the fuck is wrong with you? What the _fuck_!" She made an attempt to cover herself with a bed sheet (totally gross ones, too. I knew what had happened to them in their long lifespan). Jeremy was dumbstruck. When I didn't respond, I saw her face change, taking in my new beauty and the horrible anger in my expression.

"Bree?" she said, more quietly this time. "What the hell…happened to you?"

"I was given a gift," was my reply. I admit I tried to sound elegant, poetic, superior to her. My words were all overdone. It was more like a bad sci-fi movie than what I wanted it to be. But at the time, I thought I was doing pretty well. "A gift I will not choose to give to you." She blinked, her wide mouth agape. I instructed Jeremy to please shut and lock the door and get back in bed in my wonderfully silky, melodious voice, knowing he could not refuse the tone of my command. I smiled softly at him, what I hoped was desirously: I suppose it worked, as I saw a bit of lust enter his expression. Mandy saw it, too.

"What is this about, Bree? What do you want?"

"I want what I've always wanted. I want you." She frowned, evidently confused.

"Is this because I cheated on you? What the fuck, Bree. We were, like, never even together. Not exclusively. I thought you knew that." Was she admitting to sleeping with more people than Jeremy? Was she a complete idiot? I had to steady myself when my eyes spied her blue veins, bulging through her white and freckled skin. I could imagine the pounding of her heart.

"No, I didn't know that." My voice was perfectly calm; she would never have known that beneath my tranquil veneer, I burned to destroy her, to drink her with a passion I could scarcely control.

"Well, it's probably time to get over it," she snapped. I smiled gently.

"Yes, I think it probably is." I moved with grace finer than a dancer's across the room to Jeremy, who was sitting on the bed again, where I leaned towards his face as if to kiss him. I remember climbing on top of him, my scent intoxicating him. He did not push me away, as I knew he wouldn't. I stroked his face with my stony hands, and felt him flinch under the cold. But I let my eyes smolder at him, parted my lips erotically, and I felt him begin to respond to me. He tried to kiss me, forgetting Mandy. I let him, nibbling his lips, let his gross man-hands wander over me. Mandy was outraged—she had jumped out of the bed, not bothering to take the sheet with her.

"What the _fuck_?" she yelled, standing naked beside the bed. I broke away from Jeremy, turning my sultry gaze on her. I had to squash his face between my fingers to keep him still.

"If I can't have you, Mandy, I'll have to have everyone else who does, won't I? I'll have to…eliminate the competition." I let Jeremy kiss me again before continuing. "And I want you to watch."

She stood there, horrified at my words, as I turned Jeremy's face away from mine with a ridiculously strong hand. I started to kiss his neck and heard him sigh beneath me before I plunged my sharp teeth into the softness of his flesh.

"Ow, fuck, what the hell are you doing?" he growled beneath me. Hot blood ran into my mouth, and, as I was a newborn vampire, I predictably lost control with the taste of it. I chewed his neck apart, my hands raking along his body, opening thin cuts everywhere. He screamed as I drank his lifeblood, his skin turning paler by the second. Somewhere in the distance of my immediacy I heard Mandy scream, too, bloodcurdling and terrified. The sheets were soon dyed and smothered with Jeremy's blood; in my frenzy I had somehow managed to fling some on every wall of the room, the ceiling, the windows, the adulteress herself. At last he was quiet, motionless in the bed with me, and I knew I his veins had exhausted themselves in order to sate my lust.

Mandy had seen everything, just as I wanted her to. I wanted her to know what I was going to do to her. I wanted her _dead _more than I had ever wanted her living.

High with Jeremy's blood, I turned like the monster I had become towards her, crawling over the red and white corpse with yet more hunger in my face, smeared with blood. Jeremy's head lolled sickeningly to the side, as one's head should never do, except in failed beheadings with blunt axes in medieval Europe.

Mandy had backed herself into a corner, paralyzed with fear. Blood glinted off my teeth—or fangs, as it were. She was naked and beautiful, for a human, and I thought then that she should leave the world as she had entered it—nude, bloody, and screaming. I would take her life as her mother had given it; I was the only one who could control her now, as she had controlled me. I was not merciful.

I came upon her like lion to sick zebra, and her blood was the sweetest thing, the most wonderful of all things, that had ever touched my lips.

What I did to Mandy should not bear repeating. With my teeth, my strength, my nails, and my hatred, I did things to her no one should ever suffer nor hear of. By the time I had satisfied myself with her death, you would not have even been able to tell what she was. You would not have even known she had once been a whole person.

I waited in my bloodlust for the other members of my old household to return, and I did to each of them what I had done to Jeremy and Mandy. I was so full by the time I was done, I would not need to feed for weeks. The police would report state that the homeless youths who had died there were victims of Seattle's newly famous serial killer. It would be in the news for a day, and then they would be forgotten.

I am deeply sorry for this, now. Mandy had wounded me deeply, yes, but she was not much different than I. She was just as scared and just as sad, just as lost and hopeless. She was not a good person, but I think she would have been, if I had allowed her to grow up. But I robbed her of salvation and I stole from her any future she might have had. I drank all their futures before they even had a chance to come to fruition in dreams. I felt justified for killing them all then, but I was sixteen, and I knew nothing. I remember their names every day now, and I know that they are absolutely excused from forgiving me—their forgiveness, and the forgiveness of Jeannie and Donald, are not things I have earned, nor that I will ever earn. But to each of them, to Mandy, Jeremy, Jason, Amy, Laura, Jeff, Davie, Jaden, and Brittany, I apologize a thousand times. I apologize the world over, and I'll keep apologizing until I am finally dead, like I deserve to be.


	3. Chapter III

Victoria told us it was time to go.

I wasn't entirely sure where we were going, or why, though Riley had explained it to me several times. But it didn't make sense to me.

"That's because you're a newborn and you don't know the real ways of vampires," he said to me scathingly. "One of the Cullens killed Victoria's mate, who was trying to kill _his _mate. Victoria must have her vengeance, mate for mate. We're going after a girl named Isabella Swan. Here, sniff this if you haven't already. Remember the scent." He thrust a red blouse at me, and its unique floral scent caught my attention quickly. It was the most _wonderful _scent. I'm telling you, I still don't know how Edward doesn't just _bathe _in her blood. Dear God, honestly, it was the single most intoxicating smell I'd ever known, more so even than the scent of the vampires the night I was changed. Like, _seriously. Whoa._

You know the rest of the story, I assume. Even though we had the numbers, we were volatile and likely to cause more problems for ourselves than we were for the other side. They destroyed us without us even putting up much of a fight. We had no idea they had werewolves with them, either—at the time, I didn't even know werewolves existed, much less that vampires would ever agree to work with them on any terms. Guess I was wrong.

I don't think I need to explain to you what all happened, really—there was fighting and killing, dead vampires rolling around like bits of white stone. I wasn't scared, I was too caught up in our "mission" to be.

Things changed when the group I was fighting with caught two of the Cullens. My partners managed to distract the one who seemed more experienced, more violent—I assume this was Jasper—leaving me and Anna to tackle the tall blonde one. Snarling and making scary faces, as was our way, we descended hungrily upon him. But this was the vampire Carlisle, and he alone was too strong for either of us, even together.

I'm not even entirely sure I know how to tell you what happened next, but suddenly it was like Carlisle and I were the only ones in the forest. We were alone. I don't know where Anna went, or Victoria or Riley, or any of the Cullens and their wolfish friends; it was me and the old one. The others blurred, became shadows, and finally vanished.

"You don't want to do this," Carlisle's voice said to me. It felt as if his voice, glossy with honey and allure, filled all the places where my friends and enemies just had been. "You don't know that what you're doing is wrong yet, but it is. Victoria's cause is regrettable, yes, but her pain and her fury does not make it right. There is no hope of you winning this, my child, no matter how hard you fight." He reached out, very gingerly, to touch my hand, and for some reason my hatred fizzled out like wet fingers around the head of a match. I felt abruptly very tired, bone-weary and…_done_. I had only been a vampire for so short a time, and yet here I was, knowing myself for a monster and an abomination. I was something that should never be. And I had no fight left in me, not even in my very core. Carlisle's hand grasped mine more firmly. It was large and soft and gentle, and it felt like all the gratitude of those he had saved with his doctor's tricks flowed into me. I watched my face change in the ocher mirror of his eyes and we both knew that he had almost won. He knew I could not try to kill him now. "Come with my family and me. You can live with us. You'll have to learn our way of life, of course, but we'll protect and help you. You don't want to live this way, not with them. I've done it—all my family has done it, and it never brought us anything but unhappiness and self-loathing. Become one of us." His golden eyes were so pleading and yet so sure, and I knew that everything he said was true. In that moment something in his face reminded me of Donald, and if I had been unsure of Carlisle's proposition I was certain of it now: my parents—for that is what they were—would have wanted me to accept it, and though I would still be a monstrosity maybe I could redeem myself a little and…be the lesser evil. I did not think I could ever go back to Jeannie and Donald's house, to see in their faces all that I had done to them; but if I could not be with them and earn their forgiveness, maybe in time I could find in the Cullens what I had never allowed my parents to give me, though they tried: patience, acceptance, and love.

I squeezed his hand wordlessly, and he knew that he had won.

"Stay behind me," he said, his tone still gentle but firm. A coldness came and all of the immortals reappeared, seamlessly resuming the war from which I had temporarily been misplaced. Their fighting seemed so futile now—so _silly_—that I could do nothing but sit myself down on a boulder and sigh. Of course I still wanted to rape and pillage like a cannibalistic Viking, and flashes of heat pumped through me every now and again, telling me to kill and destroy and eviscerate. But Carlisle's cool words calmed me, and the gift of the peaceful life he had offered me was worth more to me than avoiding the wrath of vampires who thought I was dispensable and the furious energy emanating from ferocious newborns. It was like—well, you know when you're really upset and you just want everything around you to stop, so you wrap your arms around your favorite teddy bear and hold on tight? Carlisle, my former enemy, had become my beloved bear. A deliciously icy breeze in the center of a goddamn inferno.

I watched as my former "family" were slaughtered in chaotic frenzy and I felt numb, except for knowing that they would never have seen what Carlisle had shown me. Their loss was tragic though, I suppose, because they wouldn't ever get a chance to grow up. They'd never be anything but animals. And I saw myself in them: perpetual children, temperamental and obdurate. I hoped that maybe, if they died, then so would that part of me—their deaths granted me life, or something like it. But they weren't really alive, were they? How can you regret the deaths of those who had maybe never lived?

In the end, it was not to be. I would not earn redemption, I would not earn life in any form. The battle was over and the Cullens and the werewolves—stinky things—were obviously victorious. They all gathered together near the center of the forest, looking tired but relatively unscathed. They were a powerful team. I hate to be cliché and overdone, but I guess it's not really as though I'm trying to press you, so I'll say it anyway: I think the strength of their love for each other was more potent than Victoria's hate.

Edward Cullen came out of the forest clutching a shockingly pretty human girl with mahogany hair and a terrified face, her big chocolate eyes wide with fear. It didn't register with me who she was until the breeze blew the smell of her my way, and I instantly recognized the scent from the red blouse Riley had thrown at me. Every fiber and nerve in me was instantaneously alert and pounding with desire, so strong that I stood up and started to move towards her.

"I _want _her," I moaned aloud; it was a sick and breathtaking pleasure to watch blood drain from her lovely face. The boy threw me a sharp look and Carlisle's words, which I had forgotten, came back to me, and I stopped. The whole group turned and looked at me angrily, like they had missed one, but Carlisle held a held out like he was shielding me.

"She's going to be one of us now," he told them. "She changed sides." The one they called Jasper growled at me, his gaze frighteningly dark.

"Her kind don't change," he rumbled threateningly.

"You did," I heard Carlisle remind him lowly. His face fell into the shape of accepted deference and shot me a final look, turning back to the miniscule woman at his side. Someone asked me my name, and I told them. At least they knew what it was, before it was lost.

But the Volturi were there by that time, and their argument fell in line with Jasper's. Carlisle asked them to spare me, but I had, of course, broken laws of all kinds and it was their responsibility and obligation. They _had_ to kill me. In a sense I was actually relieved: I knew what I was, and I knew what I would always want, what I'd _need_. I didn't think I could bear living in the world now, not with the knowledge of all the things I'd done and hadn't done, to Jeannie and Donald, and to those whose futures I had taken. What justice could be found in a world which would allow someone like me to exist? Our kind had to be some mistake, and I was the worst offender of all. Don't get me wrong, being murdered by vampires totally sucks, but it was the only option. It was poetic justice, in a sense. I had been in too much pain for too long and caused others so much suffering that the most righteous, honest justice there was would be for me to die. I was ready to accept this. It was just time. So Jane did it, and it was without question the single most awful experience anyone could have ever. If there's a hell I'm sure Hitler is enjoying a lesser punishment there than I did. But I deserved it. Hitler deserved it, too, but that asshole was a mortal and his blood probably would have tasted like bitter ass anyway.

Here I am, then, saying goodbye or signing off or whatever. You've heard my story now. It's told, it's out of me, and now it's over. I'm dead and it will be official as soon as I've stopped writing. And I'm not sure what I want out of you, now that you know what I am. The deep parts of me want you to hate me, to deplore me and the fact that I ever existed. I want you to be repulsed by me. When you hear the name Bree Richardson I want you to go into the bathroom and barf. I don't want you to think highly of me. But there's vanity in there, too: another part of me wants you to see that I've changed, even though it technically took dying twice for me to do it. Some of me wants you to grant me the redemption and forgiveness I so vehemently crave and in no way should have. Maybe that says that I haven't changed at all. I'm still manipulating you to so I get to have some hollow pity that you certainly wouldn't mean if you knew me. Remember that scene from the movie The Lion King, when Mufasa is clinging to the side of the cliff by his claws and Scar just throws him off, down into the stampede of ibex? I need you to be the Scar to my Mufasa. Throw me off the cliff so that I won't cling there forever.

Well, thanks for sticking around, I guess. You're my last bridge to humanity and life in any fashion, and obviously it's a little hard for me to let it go. I'm not going to impart upon you any really great little beads of wisdom—who am I, that I could presume to do that now? But I will tell you this: if you ever come across a vampire, run like hell and don't look back because life as a vampire is not something I would ever wish on anyone. They're beautiful and all, but they're not cool. They suck and they don't love you and they never will. Also I advise wearing turtleneck sweaters all year round so they can't see the veins in your neck. It might help if you smell kind of bad, too: stop showering and roll around in some onions or fish or something. If there's anything you can do to keep you mortal and wonderfully human, do it. Do it for me. Live to the fullest that which I freely gave up without ever knowing the true beauty of it until it was no longer mine, without exploring the things it yielded to me that it will never offer again. Remember that every day that is given to you is something that could just as easily be taken away, that it's an experience unique to you that I and a thousand, ten thousand, others will never have. In your hands lies a gift more precious than any other, and it's something worth holding on to.

And if you ever run into the Cullens, tell them Bree says hello.

Love,

_Me_


End file.
